Adhesive sheet printing and/or labeling often consists of printing on adhesive sheets that include an adhesive agent layer that is constantly and consistently sticky. Many of the adhesive sheets are formed with a removable non-stick layer, comprising both a release coat and a release liner, over the adhesive agent layer to prevent the adhesive agent layer from coming into contact with, first, internal components of a label printer, applicator, or labeler, and second, a printable layer of an adhesive sheet when an adhesive sheet is wound in a form factor such as a roll. In certain instances, the liner layer is disposed of after printing or at the time the label is applied to an article, either manually or by an autonomous process designed for the removal purpose.
In other certain instances, an adhesive label is formed by a sheet, having a printed layer, a release coat, and an adhesive agent layer. The release coat prevents the adhesive agent layer from adhering to the printed layer, but standard printing, labeling, and label applying equipment must be coated with a non-stick material to also prevent the adhesive agent layer of the adhesive label from gumming or jamming the equipment components. Instead of covering an adhesive agent layer with a non-stick material, a printable layer of an adhesive sheet and internal components of a label printer are coated with a non-stick material to resist the adhesive agent layer of the adhesive sheet that is constantly and consistently sticky. Certain adhesive labels have been developed having a printed layer, a sheet, and an adhesive agent layer that can be made sticky by an activator prior to or after printing/applying an image, but many of these still optimally require a non-stick coating to avoid the gumming problem discussed above, such as the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,298,894 by Nagamoto et al. that utilizes silicone oil.
Each of the prior art systems presents different drawbacks. A non-stick liner layer is typically non-recyclable and not re-usable, thereby generating waste for every such label that is used. Coating components with non-stick material increases the costs of the system and may not entirely prevent gumming of the system, that is likely to occur when an adhesive residue adheres to a component.
It is therefore desirable to eliminate the need for an adhesive sheet to be formed with a non-stick liner layer or for components to be coated with non-stick material.